


Dictator Charlie Shorts and Side Stories

by DeaconBrews



Series: The Reign of Queen Charlotte (Dictator Charlie) [3]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series), Helluva Boss (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Siblings, Assassination, Bad End Timeline, Blood and Violence, Edgy, Grimdark, Revenge, Side Story, Uneven Fights, Vignette, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:01:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29408769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeaconBrews/pseuds/DeaconBrews
Summary: Assorted shorts and side stories set in the Dictator Charlie timeline that don't relate directly to the action of the "main" story
Series: The Reign of Queen Charlotte (Dictator Charlie) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155545
Kudos: 3





	1. Vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first cleanse of Hell since Queen Charlotte ascended to the throne. She's ready and waiting.

>For the first time in her entire existence, Charlie smiled at the approach of the exterminators  
>A gleeful, giddy, yet capricious sort of smirk  
>The smirk of a child watching a carefully-laid prank come to fruition  
>The fools had no idea what awaited them

>She looked to Prototype Alpha and Prototype Beta, formerly Razzle and Dazzle  
>They'd lost interest in her some time after her father had been dealt his punishment for failing to protect her mother, but now they were back at her side  
>And they were far more capable than ever before  
>Bedighted with heavy armor and bristling with the newest of infernal weaponry  
>The destructive power of a legion of devils, packed into a single demon  
>The perfect foil to Heaven's swarming armies of angels

>She pointed Alpha toward a suitable position from which to fire upon the invaders  
>They had been equipped with her preliminary designs for effective ranged weaponry, while Beta had been outfitted with an assortment of novel blades and blunt-force implements  
>The first wave of exterminators soon touched down in her domain  
>They looked about in confusion, marveling at the enormous, stone-grey edifices she had begun to erect during her short reign since the last cleanse  
>Then she gave the signal, and the slaughter began  
-  
>The lesser enforcer units that she'd built based on what she'd learned from her experiments on Razzle and Dazzle emerged from their hiding places  
>Fat, leaden projectiles, glowing with hellfire spat forth from every direction, seeking souls to drag down to The Abyss  
>Blades reforged from abandoned exterminator weapons groped about, looking for serpaphic armor to pick apart, and angelic flesh to slice into ribbons  
>As the cannon fodder began to charge, the queen's personal attendants started their attack  
>Alpha began raining down a neverending volley of shells, turning whole phalanxes into bloody slag, while Beta came hurtling past it to crush and tear apart anything that survived its counterpart's hail of bullets  
>Heaven's brave and noble warriors were consumed in an instant, devoured by a thick fog of gunsmoke and electronic screams

>The second wave arrived just in time to choke upon the clouds of red mist that had been their comrades a moment before  
>Beta got to have more fun this time, while Alpha was reloading  
>The loathsome, leering angels who had murdered her mother ended their worthless existences with a rich taste of what it was like to be torn apart by a well-sharpened piece of seraphic steel  
>Their screams were pathetic, and the resistance they mounted as they realized this year's cleanse wouldn't be the usual cakewalk was pitiful  
>The generic enforcers had them outnumbered and outgunned, inexorably closing in, while her pair of glitzy prototypes spat vengeance with unceasing fury, destroying dozens of the enemy for every loss that her forces took  
>Divine souls were erased en masse, halos shattering against the ground in a continuous rhythm  
>The third wave was doomed before they even hit the ground  
-  
>The prototypes had fully deduced the enemy's deployment pattern by the time the second wave was eliminated  
>They knew where the rest of them would land, expecting a half-cleared Hell for their most powerful and valuable soldiers to mop up the last bits of Hell's resistance  
>A mere gesture, a demonstration of their own insurmountable strength and unfailing piety  
>This assault was supposed to be nothing but a show of what perfect and invulnerable warriors against the unholy they were  
>Instead, they found themselves playing an unfamiliar role: the victims  
>Charlie couldn't help but laugh with glee at the sight of over-confident warrior angels, veterans of thousands of battles, shrieking as they were perforated and ground up and crushed by her new army  
>It felt good to watch them suffer  
>Especially when their commander, easily identified by the fact that they bore swords, rather than a spear, touched down  
>They managed to cut down a few of her new war machines, but they were soon overwhelmed  
>Her top-of-the-line enforcers dropped the chief exterminator at her feet while their comrades continued to butcher his subordinates all around them  
>She was so giddy at the sight of the weeping angel on the ground before her that she actually felt like singing again, for the first time in a long, long while  
-  
>"As above, so below..."  
>"Place your bets, which way the head will roll?"

>Beta extended a gleaming blade from its arm

>"Made in your image, we..."

>The Scarlet Queen grabbed the angel by the neck  
>She brought its masked face up to hers

>"...are at least as TWISTED AND MEAN AS THEE~"

>She drove her booted foot into the exterminator's chest to knock it back into Alpha and Beta's murderous embrace

>" 'fore your eyes, what a curious sight, your children have turned on you~"

>Alpha gripped it by the wings and hoisted it upright, so that Beta would have an easier time cutting

>"And you say, you don't sleep well at night~"

>Charlotte reached up and pried the mask away, revealing a face not unlike her own, pale and rosy-cheeked  
>It was soaked in tears, and its lips were forming pleas for mercy that she couldn't hear over the music ringing in her head

>"Well, I'll take care of that for you~"  
-  
>Beta severed the angel's neck, allowing the rest of him to slump to the ground  
>The exterminator commander's scream was muffled as his own blood flooded his throat  
>Charlie caught his halo as it fell toward the ground and twirled it around her finger for a few whirls before tossing it back toward the battleground below her  
>Alpha shot it to pieces as it fell  
>Charlie cackled as she watched the shards disintegrate over the bloodbath like confetti  
>This was the start of a new era  
>Her domain was no longer a soft target  
>Hell was angry  
>Hell was vengeful  
>Hell was hungry  
>From this day forward, The Fire would consume anything stupid enough to encroach upon it  
>Heaven would be made to know every last bit of the fear and misery she'd felt her entire life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYcP6YmDpc


	2. The Enforcers Of The Queen's Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation from the thread giving a rough description of Charlie's "Enforcer Units"

What do D Charlie's enforcer units look like? Are they like ED 209 or hwat?  
-  
The prototypes were just Razzle and Dazzle, augmented into grotesque, cybernetic supersoldiers, however, it is implied that they were basically weapon testing platforms.  
One of the greentexts have mentioned that the enforcer units resemble the Exterminators greatly.  
My guess is that they look very similar to them: sort-of "demonic angels", with more emphasis on the "demonic" side, and a(n even) darker color scheme.

Then, I guess later models would look increasingly abstract, with more function over form, as the Queen's reign solidified.  
The latest models are probably just nondescript mechs, or look like levitating assembly-line robots, but equipped with weapons.

It would fit well with how her own attitude changes over time: she goes from openly sadistic and vengeful to just cold and calculating, reserving most of her venom for when she deems it necessary.  
The enforcer units, likewise, go, first from hideous parodies of what were once beings of her affection (and a symbol of her father's love), to basically a mockery of what Heaven had scourged Hell with, to completely dehumanized, unreadable machines.  
-  
>1st gen enforcers: basically arco-flagellants or similar battle servitors. Chunks of raw meat with the relevant pieces sliced off and replaced with destructive machinery. Razzle and Dazzle had their brains cored out of anything that didn't relate to motor control and obedience and were loaded down with every piece of weaponry that Queen Charlotte's mind could conceive of now that she's rid herself of such stupid ideas as mercy and redemption.  
-  
>2nd gen enforcers: more like Kataphron servitors. The most important thing is that the exposed flesh has been sheathed in armor plates, so that its hard for any of Heaven's soldiers to injure the mindless living weapons when they cross paths. Unholy weaponry has also been refined. Hellfire, as effective a means of erasing a soul as seraphic steel, has been tamed and harnessed to a finer degree than ever before in the history of creation. It can now be neatly and safely tucked into an ammunition cell and unleashed at the careful discretion of whoever has their mind wired into the weapon. Angels and rebellious sinners or native demons alike can all be wiped from existence with great efficiency as soon as they present a threat to the new regime.  
-  
>3rd gen enforcers: killing machines in the strictest sense of the word. No character, no color, no nothing. Ugly hulks of machinery bristling with weaponry, sitting quietly or thoughtlessly treading over their patrol routes. Ready to brutalize anyone or anything that dared to defy the queen's will, but otherwise so vacant and empty and devoid of character that they may as well be household appliances. There's definitely a "brain" in there somewhere, underneath all that carefully designed armor and those shock-absorbing crumple zones, severed from whatever demon it originally belonged to and stuffed into the machine, but whoever it was is long gone. The person is no more, only the programming remains. Directives to watch with everlasting vigilance and destroy as soon as they saw something out of order. A mind without a soul, hardwired into a vengeful arsenal, serving for eternity as the means of Queen Charlotte's retribution upon all of existence.  
-


	3. The Old Guard and The Death of Forcas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To consolidate her power, Charlie needed to eliminate anyone who might still harbor loyalty toward her father.

>After the takeover, Charlie more or less cleaned up the old guard  
>It was the Mother of All Purges, the sort that made Stalin's look like a nursery school teacher send the naughty kids to the time-out corner  
>With her dad dead, the rest of the Seven Princes followed, starting with Mammon and Moloch  
>Soon enough, she had all of Hell's finances and arms industry under her thumb  
>Belphergor was quickly dealt with - suffocated in his sleep - and his overgrown zone in Pentagram was napalmed to a desert  
>Leaving no hideouts for the rest, other than the Wastes  
>...but she put paid to them, too - with all of Hell's armies at her command, she eradicated the Warlords of the Wasteland  
>It really was tantamount to genocide - "Leave non standing." was the order  
>Beelzebub followed, alongside Azazel, just for good measure, lest they'd accuse her of nepotism  
>With food production under her control, she effectively seized full control over Hell, and with Asmodeus' death, she stood practically unopposed - especially after she had hunted down Leviathan  
>The concrete housing estates of Envy were deemed the most efficient when it comes to the usage of space - thus, all cities were demolished, and rebuilt based on one plan, wit the Wastes around them turned into proxy zones, separating each by walls  
>Leaving no place to hide  
>"Useful" overlords, like Vox, and his thralls (Katie and Tom), Michael and Ezekiel, and even Sir Pentious, were left alive (if under unending scrutiny), while "useless" ones (such as Valentino, Velvet, and, eventually, the rebelling Cherri Bomb), were executed - permanently  
>With her order solidified, and Hell made devoid of all pleasures, Charlie - now Queen Charlotte, or, the "Scarlet Queen" - began dealing with the overpopulation problem  
>Even after cramming everyone in concrete shoeboxes, there was still simply not enough room for all the sinners  
>So, she set about "correcting" that

>Only her old friends were shown "true" mercy

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>"You didn't knock. I suppose that means you're not here just to visit."  
>"Who sent you?"  
>"..."  
>"It was Charlie, wasn't it?"  
>"No no, Charlie couldn't have sent you."  
>"Charlie's dead."  
>"Queen Charlotte sent you, right?"

>Forcas turned to face his assassins, one hand stroking his long white beard in idle thought

>"Well, look at you, an imp of all things, a commander in the new army!"  
>"I remember when you all lived in hordes that turned the plains red when you marched, fighting with wild beasts to protect your broodmothers."  
>"You've really come up in the world haven't you?"  
>"And to have someone of such high rank, leading the mission to put an end to me before I can even pose a threat!"

>The Knight of Hell bowed, still flexible enough in spite of his age to do it with smooth grace

>"Truly an honor, sir."  
-  
>Overwatch Commander 1789's face was steady behind his visor  
>His target's words barely even registered in his mind  
>This was an important mission  
>His first since receiving his promotion  
>He would not allow it to fail  
>If he did, there would be severe consequences

>Spear still at the ready, he flicked his horns toward the ancient warrior demon, and the other overwatch troopers who flanked him rushed forward  
>Forcas incinerated the first, they didn't even have time to scream  
>He parried the second's attack as they came within striking distance, summoning his sword from the ether  
>Another blow blocked, yet another dodged, a quick darting motion to a position his opponent couldn't block from, and Forcas severed the next demon's head with a single blow  
>Unaffected by the brutal dispatching of their comrades, the rest of the squad continued their attack, making to surround the knight and overwhelm him  
>Behind them, OC-1789 sent out the signal to the enforcer units waiting outside  
>He'd been ordered to minimize collateral damage if possible, but the loss of two troopers in such rapid succession made it clear that an escalation of force was necessary  
>Reinforcements on the way, he began his own advance  
-  
>Even with enemies on all sides, Forcas managed to hold his own  
>He had good situational awareness, managing to block or evade blows that would have quickly laid a lesser soldier low  
>And he was fierce far beyond what his thin, wrinkled form would indicate, breaking spear-shafts or bones with his counterattacks, flicking fire that sent the troopers scattering when he could, allowing him to regain ground  
>But he was badly outnumbered, and enclosed, and his enemies felt no fear, righting themselves and resuming the assault as best they could in spite of damaged weapons or compromised armor or horrid blood loss  
>They couldn't land a lethal strike, but their combined efforts overwhelmed him often enough to stagger him and open wounds that sapped his strength and left him ever more vulnerable for further attacks  
>Then, the enforcer units broke through the wall  
\----------  
>The queen's new war machines were equipped with truly impressive sensor systems  
>They were able to monitor the entire fight through the walls with no trouble  
>When they were ordered to attack, they knew precisely where to launch themselves, even through solid blocks, to quickly meet their target

>In spite of all that, Forcas' was sharp enough to sense the danger  
>He managed to evade their initial strike  
>Even as the walls ripped apart, sending debris everywhere, and the hulking weapon-encrusted pieces of machinery came hurtling in, he managed to dodge the rain of shattered stone and bladed limbs as they reached for the spot he'd been standing in only moments before  
>He spoke through a mouthful of blood as he shifted his attention from the overwatch troopers around him to the enforcers

>"Ah, but of course, you do have the technological advantage."

>He turned to face OC-1789 and flick away a spear-thrust that would otherwise have put an end to him

>"This fight may be yours, Commander, but I will see that it costs you."  
-  
>Forcas raised his hand toward the ceiling and sent forth a bolt of true hellfire that quickly began to consume the structure  
>In any other fight, the enemy would have reconsidered, reorganized, withdrawn and waited for a new opportunity to attack that wouldn't cost them so many casualties  
>But these demons were members of The Overwatch Of Hell's Populace  
>Supported by The Enforcers Of The Queen's Will  
>The former's minds had been scrubbed of fear, and all other emotions for that matter  
>The only thing they feared anymore was a failed mission; the cost of which was far beyond anything anyone could inflict on them  
>The latter had never known fear, never known anything, and never would  
>And so the brawl continued, even as gobs of lethal, soul-erasing fire began to fall about them  
-  
>The overwatch troopers did their best to keep away from the flames as they attacked  
>They wouldn't be able to kill their target if they themselves were dead  
>But they gave not an inch of ground to the last of Hell's knights nor to the inferno he'd conjured

>The enforcers simply marched forward  
>Mindless  
>Tank-like  
>Not feeling the sparks of unholy fire as they rained down upon them and ate away at their metallic forms  
>The simplest of tactics evaded them  
>They existed only to obey their basic programming  
>And they had been programmed to kill  
-  
>The machines left themselves vulnerable in their suicidal drive to engage their target  
>Forcas was able to use the flaming environment around him to his advantage  
>But the automated horrors were simply built too sturdily  
>They could be slowed, but they could not be stopped  
>Blades still stabbed out and gun barrels belched out slugs and flechettes with mechanical precision, even as the enforcers themselves lost armor plates, ocular sensors, or limbs  
>With their inexorable battlefront before him and troopers to his sides, the knight was soon backed up against the only structurally sound wall left  
-  
>Then, he was pinned against it as the enforcer seized him  
>Forcas had already known it was over as soon as he felt the stone touch his back, but he soldiered on, defiant for defiance's sake  
>He put a few more gashes into the machine that had its metal claws around his neck  
>With his spare hand, he landed a solid hit with a fireball on another, the troopers flanking it scattering as its munitions casing began to pop and sputter  
>Then, he felt the blade enter his chest  
>He grunted, then sighed

>"Well done, commander"

>He looked down at the little soot-drenched imp who had struck the final blow

>"Well done indeed. Brilliant tactics."  
>"...not brilliant actually. But a very effective use of the resources you were given."  
>"You got the job done."  
>"Hmm-hmmm~"  
>"I suppose that's all that really matters."

>Forcas dropped his sword  
>He pointed the forefingers of both hands at the ground  
>Hellfire began to glow around them again

>"I know it's not in your usual playbook, but I suggest you retreat"  
>"I don't mind letting you and your friends live, but I'm afraid I'll be taking these machines of yours down to The Abyss with me"

\---

>Overwatch Commander 1789 yanked his spear back out of his target  
>He'd managed to slip in a killing blow while the enforcers kept him occupied  
>Even if he wasn't quite dead yet, he was done for  
>Mission accomplished  
>But he intended to go out in a blaze of glory  
>He flicked his radio on, but still shouted as loud as he could to make sure as many troopers as possible would hear him over the crackle of the firestorm around them and the sharp clatter of enforcer ammo cooking off

>"ALL UNITS"  
>"FALL BACK"  
>"FULL RETREAT"  
>"REGROUP AT DROP POINT"

>He turned tail and ran just as bolts of unholy flame began to turn the floor into molten rock  
>He felt a stray bullet from an enforcer's exploding ammunition case hit his leg as he passed through the ruined doorway, but he kept running  
-  
>A wave of heat washed over OC-1789 as he cleared the building  
>He'd made it just far enough that the column of fire rising into the night sky only managed to throw him to the ground and heat his armor's plates to an uncomfortable degree  
>The troopers who hadn't been as quick had less luck  
>The ones closest to the blast were reduced to ash or smeared across the ground by flying debris  
>Gone in an instant  
>Those just behind him were scorched, and began rolling over the ground to put out the flames engulfing them

>The small handful of troopers who had made it out before them and reached a safe distance rushed back once the flaming pillar faded from lethal pyre down to a mere raging blaze  
>They attended to their comrades with callous indifference  
>The pain and shock was of no concern, only whether or not they could survive and be brought back into fighting shape  
>Those most likely to recover were given priority treatment

>A gloved hand grabbed OC-1789 by the back of his armor and hauled him to his feet  
>He gritted his teeth as he was forced to stand upon a leg with a bullet lodged in it, and the blisters forming on his skin grated against his uniform, but made no sound  
>He looked to the trooper who had lifted him up

>"All is in order, trooper?"

>They nodded

>"All is in order, sir."

>He nodded back

>"Survivors?"

>They gestured around at the uninjured troopers helping the injured drag themselves further from the blaze

>"What you see is all that's left."

>"Understood."  
>"Gather up and wait for extraction."

>"Affirmative."

>The trooper saluted, flakes of their own burnt flesh and ruined armor sloughing away from the motion  
>OC-1789 turned away from them and submitted a request to patch through to Headquarters  
\---  
>"This is Overwatch Commander 1789 to HQ."  
>"Please respond."

>There was a pause as the usual process of deciding whether or not the transmission was worthy of being put through proceeded  
>OC-1789 took a few steps back and to the side to dodge another spray of hot metal and building blocks as another enforcer unit went off  
>The usual static on the channel cut out to eerie silence for a moment, leaving only the roar of the flames and the grunts of his surviving troopers as company, then he was cleared for communication

>"1789, this is HQ."  
>"Status of objective?"

>"Target has been eliminated."

>"Status of unit?"

>"OT's 481, 1791, 263, 421, 889, 347, 2011, 394-C, and 911-Alpha have been erased"  
>"OT's 299, 1354, 888, 721, 761-B, 3504, 4117-D, and 805 are injured but salvageable."  
>"Remainder of troopers are unharmed."  
>"All enforcer units have been destroyed."  
>"I am in need of medical attention."

>There was a pause on the other end of the line before they spoke again

>"Acceptable losses."  
>"Return to base."  
>"Report immediately for debriefing once you have been treated."

>He had to be careful to keep his sigh of relief from being heard over the radio  
>But it felt as though a great weight had been lifted on him  
>They had found his service adequate  
>He and his forces would face no punishment for the loss of personnel and materiel

>"Affirmative HQ."  
>"Moving within the hour."

>The line closed without further acknowledgement  
>OC-1789 looked around and found his spear, a few short, painful steps away from him  
>He picked it back up and, using it as a walking stick, began to hobble over to rejoin the rest of the overwatch demons  
>He would sleep well tonight, after getting this slug out of his leg and sitting through his debriefing  
>All was in order  
>He had made it so


	4. Vox's Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A response to a prompt for an even more grimdark take on Vox's fate in the Dictator Charlie timeline

>Vox isn't merely enslaved  
>He's been incorporated  
>He doesn't sit at a desk, thoughtlessly signing one form after another as soon as Queen Charlotte sends them beneath his pen, hoping that if he keeps working he'll escape Val's fate  
>He's an integral part of the regimes propaganda  
>Literally  
>The important parts of The Media Demon are wired directly into the grid at the Infernal Information Management Center  
>Everything else was cut off and tossed into the trash heap to corrode and rot away  
>Not that anyone ever makes it far enough inside Ministry Building #164 to actually see The Central Processor face to face, but in the hypothetical scenario that by some miracle a rebellious demon were to make it past the standard automatic perimeter defenses, and then past the substantial number of guards who attended to them, and then from there make it past the heavy units from The Enforcers Of The Queens Will, and after that somehow defeat a full platoon of the finest and best-equipped troopers The Overwatch Of Hell's Populace has ever produced, and after that, their commander, sporting weapons that even Charlotte's top scientists don't really understand, they wouldn't find some grand icon of thought control  
>They'd find what seemed to be a flat-panel TV screen, suspended from a net of more wires than anyone could possibly count, in a chamber full of electronics too vast to see the edges of  
>In between flickers of the various accounts of every sin a mortal soul had committed, being shunted into containment cells to remind the occupants of why they deserved to be sent straight to the abyss instead of being offered the barest chance of redemption, they might spot a pained face  
>If they lingered, the face might begin to speak, brief snippets slipped out in between the usual prerecorded reminders that Overwatch was everywhere and how much stronger enforcers were than exterminators  
-  
>Given enough time, the poor, overburdened piece of equipment would make its wishes clear  
>Maybe only a word or two at a time, being so otherwise consumed with serving as a central piece of the queen's misery machine, but the message would be a simple one, easy enough to convey  
>"Please, kill me"  
-  
>"I'm sorry"  
>"I picked the wrong side"  
>"I thought Valentino and Velvet were the safer bet"  
>"I was wrong"  
>"I know I should have bet on Charlie's little project"  
>"I should have been nicer to Angel Dust"  
>"I should have offered Alastor a handshake and a peace treaty instead of just breaking balls"  
>"I should have done a lot of things"  
>"Maybe just one of them would've stopped this"  
>"But I didn't do any of them, silly me"  
>"My life was a chain of fuckups, and so was my afterlife, and now here I am"  
>"Here we are"  
>"Please, I just want to rest now, I'm so tired of being, having to think and feel and...BE"  
>"Please, let me stop being"


End file.
